The Hypothetical Adventures of Penny Universe
by Interspark
Summary: In an Alternate Universe, a very different Pearl beats Rose Quartz to the punch, and gives up her physical form, to bring a beautiful, half-Gem baby into the world, named Penny. Very different from Steven, this boisterous young lady has her own way of protecting the earth.
1. Prologue

**Hey everyone, so this is my first AU Steven Universe story, so I hope you like it. I'm just gonna say off the bat- I do NOT ship Pearl and Greg, that would be ridiculous. The Pearl in this story is essentially an OC. It's not technically a Mum Swap AU, since the main character isn't technically Steven, and I'm definitely not gonna do that thing where I just write out the transcript of every episode in the show, with different characters saying different lines. Saying that, the main events of the series will probably feature in some way, I don't have much of a plan. Anyway, enough rambling from me, enjoy!**

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In an alternate universe, Pearl was a very different Gem. Like most Gems of her cut she adored cleaning, planning and organising. At the same time, she was boisterous, outspoken and had an inappropriate sense of humour, with little understanding of tact. She was the only Gem of her cut with the ability to summon a weapon, and her weapons of choice were a pair of duel hatchets.

The most prominent aspect of Pearl's personality though, was that she detested authority figures, and being told what to do. She would have been shattered within days of emerging, but Pearl had always done an excellent job of keeping it on the down low. She seethed and gritted her teeth while carrying out orders, and would even occasionally stoop to making obscene gestures at her superiors when their backs were turned.

When Pearl came to earth, she saw it as an opportunity to make a new start. If she hadn't met Rose Quartz when she did, she probably would have started the rebellion herself. Pearl and Rose got along famously from the moment they joined forces, better and closer friends than any two Gems in the universe. Although Pearl had no opinion for or against organic life, she respected Rose's resolve, to stand up for it, no matter what the Diamonds said.

The years wore on, and eventually, the Crystal Gems won the war, and were left protecting the earth from the aftermath- the Crystal Gem army who had been reduced to mindless, corrupted beasts, all except Rose, Pearl, Garnet and eventually, the overcooked Amethyst they found in the Prime Kindergarten.

That was the life of the Crystal Gems, until the fateful day, when Greg Universe came to Beach City, to play a show. Pearl had seen fliers for the event the previous day, and convinced Rose to attend it with her. Of the four remaining Crystal Gems, Pearl was the most in touch with human culture. She had several human friends in town, adored eating, and even made the occasional trip to Funland.

While the wild-haired human onstage sang about flying through space, Rose smiled and listened intently, while Pearl whooped and cheered, and danced aggressively to the beat. They were the only people in the audience. Once the show was done, the Gems made their way to the merchandise stall, and struck up a conversation with the human. Rose vanished, shortly into their conversation, but the far more social Pearl remained. The two talked late into the night, and a friendship blossomed, which eventually became romance, in the form of undying love.

Greg gave up on his dreams of becoming a rock star, and remained in Beach City, and eventually got a job at the local car wash. His relationship with Pearl grew more and more intense, until the day Pearl decided to give up her physical form so that her gem might become her contribution to hers an Greg's split-species child. And so, Penny Universe was born.

At thirteen years old, Penny looked more like her mother, than her father. She was slender, and tall for her age, with pale skin and silvery hair which hung down around her shoulders. Her hairline was further back than most children her age, to make way for her mother's large, circular gem, which took up most of her forehead.

Penny's iconic outfit was a breezy, yellow sundress with a black star on the front, black shorts, and sensible trainers. Like her mother, most people who saw her believed she was a quiet, and reclusive type at first, and were greatly surprised by her tendencies to get overly excited, speak very quickly and loudly, and (an outlet she had been taught extensively to save for the Gems, rather than humans) bite people.

Since she was young, Penny had lived in a beach house the Gems had built, with a small mezzanine bedroom, overlooking a living room and kitchen, with the Gem's temple base on one side, and a door with a large picture of her mother hanging over it, on the other.

Despite her practically non-existent control over her gem and its powers, Penny Universe was on a mission to save the world.


	2. Penny and the Crystal Gems

"Penny, look!"

On a secluded hill, overlooking Beach City and sheltered by a handful of trees and bushes, several dozen flower buds were beginning to poke through the grass, dancing in the gentle ocean breeze. A handful of them were beginning to bloom, revealing pink petals with tiny gems in the very center. Coming up the hill, was Rose Quartz, her white dress and countless ringlets of pink hair were also swaying in the wind. Lying on top of Rose's head, buried in her locks, was Penny Universe.

"My flowers are blooming!"

Rose stopped at the edge of the flower patch, and knelt down, so as to closely examine the plants she had been cultivating. Rose grew plants all over the world, but there were several secluded locations in Beach City, which Rose saved for the plants she either most liked to visit, or were safest for Penny and the other humans to be around. In the desert, Rose had a rowdy patch of cacti, which she was hesitant to even let Penny know about.

Penny leaned forwards on Rose's head, until she began to slip and fall. Rose quickly reached up and snatched her young charge from the air, holding her upside down, before she crushed the flowers.

"They're kinda pretty, I guess..." Penny admitted. "But they don't really do anything."

Rose laughed, and put Penny down, at the edge of the patch. "Penny, plants do so much! They oxygenate your planet and provide a vital role in the food cycle of all life on earth!"

Penny folded her arms indignantly. "I know from experience that humans can't eat flowers..."

"Well, maybe not flowers, but they still look and smell nice, don't you think?"

"Yeeaah..." Penny chewed the inside of her cheek, thoughtfully. "You should make a huuuge tree monster that can run around and fight people!"

"That sounds dangerous!" Rose reasoned, with a smirk.

"Yeah, but then we could all fight it off and save Beach City!" Penny grinned enthusiastically.

"I think we have enough monsters to fight already, don't you?"

"I guess... but none of them are giant trees..."

"Well maybe you'll get lucky, and the next monster we fight will be!"

Eventually, Rose was satisfied with her inspection of her flowers. She took Penny's hand, and the pair made their way back down the hill. It was a gorgeous, sunny day, and the breeze felt good in the summer heat. Overhead a flock of seagulls flew along the shoreline, squawking loudly. It wasn't until one of them began descending on Rose and Penny, did the pair notice that it was purple, and later still, when they noticed the large, purple gem, that took up most of its belly.

"Sneak attaaack!" The seagull cried, just before its body turned white, and assumed the true form of the second youngest Crystal Gem, with her hair flailing behind her.

Amethyst tackled a grinning Penny from the air, and the pair rolled across the grass, shrieking in laughter. When they came to a stop, Penny was lying across Amethyst's chest, in a headlock, which she was struggling to escape from. All the while, Rose giggled at the pair's typical shenanigans.

"SURRENDER!" Amethyst demanded.

"NEVER!" Penny screamed in reply.

Penny pulled sharply on Amethyst's hair, prompting her to wince and let go, allowing Penny to leap at Amethyst as she climbed to her feet, wrapping her arms around her eyes.

"Oh no, I'm blind!" Amethyst cried out, in between giggles. "I'd better run as fast as I can, in one direction!"

With another flash of light, Amethyst assumed the form of a large, muscular stallion, with Penny still hanging into her elongated neck, and covering her eyes. With a dramatic whinny, Amethyst galloped in the direction of Beach City.

"Be home before dinner!" Rose called after them, and quickly added, "And be careful!"

Amethyst continued to run towards the city, with Penny still wrangling her head.

"Oh man, I'm so distracted!" Amethyst cried, jokingly. "You'd better give up, before I crash and kill us both!"

Penny squinted and did her best, dramatic face, even though Amethyst wasn't looking at her. "I would rather die..." She whispered, ominously.

Sure enough, when Amethyst reached town, she immediately tripped on the steps leading up to the boardwalk, planting her face squarely into one of them, and reverted her form. With a shriek of surprise, Penny flew from Amethyst's back and, flailing her limbs helplessly, hurled towards the harsh, wooden walkway, where she would have seriously injured herself, were it not for the almost instantaneous arrival of the fourth Crystal Gem.

"Garnet!" Penny cried, thankfully, after the fusion darted out of an adjacent alleyway, and caught Penny by her armpits.

"Penny." Garnet casually returned Penny's greeting.

"Oh... hey Garnet..." Amethyst awkwardly said, as she walked over, clearly ashamed of her own reckless behavior.

"Did you come out here just to save me?" Penny asked, sounding endearing and flattered.

Due to Penny's appetite for trouble, Garnet had made several improbable rescues over the years, and Penny had quickly caught on to Garnet's clairvoyant powers. Garnet stepped forwards and put Penny down, then backed up again, and summoned her gauntlets.

"Nope." She answered Penny's question.

With a monstrous screech, an elongated body shot out of the alleyway from which Garnet had emerged, and rammed her towards the beach. Rearing up, once it reached the sand, the monster revealed itself to be an enormous cobra, with turquoise skin, a menacing, emerald green hood, and a red gem, in the place of a left eye. It struck at Garnet, with the intent to swallow her, but Garnet quickly lifted her gauntlets and grabbed each of its sets of fangs, holding its mouth wide upon.

"Whoa!" Amethyst reacted, she turned to Penny. "Penny, wait here while I... Oh, who am I kidding?"

Amethyst took Penny's hand and held it by the hand railing which ran around the board walk, with her other hand, she drew her whip from her gem and, with a gentle flick, it securely bound Penny's wrist to the railing.

"Hey!" Penny snapped, angrily.

"It's for your own good, squirt!" Amethyst called, as she leapt over the railing, and ran towards Garnet.

As the two Crystal Gems engaged the monster, Penny fumed angrily. She reached up to her gem and ran her fingernails across it, lightly.

"Come ooon... come on come on come on! Where are my hatchets!?" She demanded.

Although Penny's gem occasionally glowed when she was highly emotional, she hadn't yet summoned her mother's weapons through it. She screwed her face up and concentrated until her head hurt. Once she gave up, she cried in frustration and tried to sink her teeth into Amethyst's whip. Although it had the consistency of ordinary rope, it was impossible to bite through.

After Penny had exhausted that option, she reached into the back pocket of her shorts, and produced a wooden slingshot, Amethyst had helped her make. She picked up a pebble from the ground and rested it in the pouch, lifted the handle with her free hand and pulled the pouch back with her teeth.

The cobra was attempting to pull away from Amethyst, who was attempting to restrain it with her secondary whip, while swatting Garnet with its tail, whenever she tried to approach its head. Penny's eye's darted back and forth as she tracked the erratic movement of its head. Eventually she found her opening, and released the pebble. It shot towards the monster, and hit it squarely in its only eye.

"Yes!" Penny cheered, as the monster recoiled in distress.

Seizing the opportunity. Amethyst assumed her Purple Puma form, and dragged the monster's head to the ground, allowing Garnet to leap high above it, and come crashing down, gauntlet's-first, onto the center of its hood. One explosion of white smoke later, Garnet was sealing the monster's gem in a bubble, and Amethyst dispersed the whip restraining Penny.

"Ha! Monsters like that, I can beat with one hand tied behind my back!" Penny joked, as she ran towards Amethyst and Garnet.

Despite her joke, Penny frowned irritably and punched Amethyst's arm when she reached her.

"Sorry dude. You know the rules." Amethyst said, casually. "No fighting monsters."

"At least until you can control your gem..." Garnet elaborated, as she transmitted her bubble to the temple.

"Yeah..." Penny sighed.

She knew there was a good reason for the Gems keeping her away from fights, and it wasn't as though she wanted to get eaten by gigantic monsters, but she had inherited her mother's urge for rebellion, for the sake of rebellion.

She ran her hand over her Gem again, with no reaction. "Some day..."


	3. Training Montage

Penny Universe had wanted to be trained in combat, almost as long as she'd known what the Crystal Gems did. Even though she knew that there was no guarantee that, when she learnt how to control her gem, she would be able to summon the same weapons as her mother, she wanted to learn how to wield duel weapons, so she would be ready, if she ever was able to manifest a pair of hatchets from her gem.

She mentioned this to the Gems fairly regularly. Amethyst would tell her that training was boring, and that Penny would know instinctively how to fight, when she felt the 'feeling' deep in her gut. Rose told Penny that fighting wasn't something people should aspire to do, and that Penny should be glad that she didn't have to fight to protect her world. Garnet simply told Penny she wasn't ready, whenever she asked. From this, Penny reasoned that Garnet was her best bet for a trainer, so settled on pestering her the most.

Towards noon, on an ordinary day, the temple door slid open, and Garnet entered Penny's house. A quick scan of the residence located Penny, lying in front of the sofa, with the upturned coffee table on top of her.

"Garnet! Help!"" She called, unconvincingly. "The coffee table turned on me! I'm too weak to fight it off! Tell my friends I wish I'd been stronger...!" Penny closed her eyes and let her tongue roll out of her mouth.

Garnet walked over to the hybrid child, and crouched down. "Well coffee table, by killing Penny, you get to take her place as a Crystal Gem." Garnet picked up the table and stood up. "Your training begins immediately."

"Oh, COME ON!" Penny cried, opening her eyes.

Penny climbed to her feet, and Garnet returned the table to its usual position.

"That was a jarring demonstration, Garnet! What if it happens for real? I need to be ready for the table uprising!"

Garnet stared at Penny, through her visor, silently.

"What's the matter?" Penny continued, in a goading voice. "You afraid you won't be able to keep up, when my killer instincts kick in, like Amethyst says?"

Penny demonstrated her point by playfully jabbing at Garnet's leg, and then pulling on it, in an attempt to pull her down. Garnet didn't move an inch.

Eventually, Garnet spoke. "Okay..."

Penny let go of Garnet's leg in surprise and fell to the floor. "Okay...?" She gasped, her eyes sparkling in excitement.

"Let's train."

-x-x-x-

With a gleam of light, Penny found herself and Garnet transported to a warp pad she'd never used before. It was towards the back of a crumbling structure, situated, Penny was astounded to notice, above the clouds. The warp pad was on a sparse platform, overlooked by a large crest, featuring a blue, white, yellow and pink diamond, on either side of which, were a set of stairs, leading towards the center of the structure.

Cheering excitedly, Penny raced up the stairs, to find herself in an arena, very reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum she had seen in books, only much smaller, or rather, what was left of it was. A vast portion of the arena had crumbled away, and much of it was still floating nearby. All that was left, was a single row of seats, a wide section of the floor, where battles were presumably held, a handful of columns, and two statues of Gems wielding weapons.

"Penny, welcome to the Sky Arena." Garnet said, as she casually came up the steps. "Thousands of Gems before you came here to fight for honour and glory, and to train, including your mother."

"My mom fought here?" Penny gasped.

"This was one of her favourite places to train after the war."

Penny gasped in silent wonder, as she imagined her mother in action, and took a moment to appreciate that she was standing in her footsteps. Before long, she span around to face Garnet.

"So where are the weapons I practice with?" She demanded.

In response Garnet placed one foot in front of the other and lifted her fists. "Strike a fighting stance."

With a look of resolve, Penny mimicked Garnet's position. Garnet walked over and adjusted the position of Penny's feet and fists slightly, ensuring that one hand protected her chin.

"No weapons until you learn to fight with your hands."

Rather than complain, Penny trusted the experienced warrior's advice. "Right."

With a gleam of her gems, Garnet shrank, assuming a height and build that matched Penny's, while keeping her prominent afro and visor.

"I'll attack... you... you push my fists aside with... with the back of your wrists."

Penny frowned concernedly, she had never heard Garnet stammer or sound uncertain before. She considered asking if she was alright, but Garnet seemed resolved to attack. Penny braced herself. She had seen Garnet fight, and doubted she'd attack at full speed, but it was unlikely she'd make it too easy, either.

Without summoning her gauntlets, Garnet rushed forwards, and lunged with her fist. Penny saw the attack coming and would have been able to block it, as Garnet had instructed... if the attack ever reached her. Garnet froze in place, her fist inches away from blocking distance, beneath her visor, Penny could see her gritting her teeth, anxiously.

"Garnet... what's wrong?"

Garnet quickly resumed her ordinary form and turned away from Penny. As Garnet stepped away, Penny could just about hear her whispering to herself.

 _"I can't do this!"_

 _"But she wants this so much!"_

 _"She's too cute to attack!"_

 _"It's just training!"_

 _"I can't!"_

 _"Well I can!"_

After a few seconds of silence, Garnet took a deep breath and turned back to her concerned trainee. "Penny, there are some people I'd like you to meet."

Penny's confusion only increased, when Garnet's gems glowed again, and her form turned white. How did shapeshifting equate to Penny meeting new people? Was Garnet going to do a series of impressions? That was far more like Amethyst than Garnet. To Penny's immense surprise though, the glowing light that was Garnet's form shrank and then separated, with each of her gems projecting its own, individual body.

When the light faded, two Gems stood before Penny, each slightly shorter than she was. One was red, with a skintight suit, a thin bandana and Garnet's afro. The other was blue, with a flowing dress, and a fringe which covered her eyes (or 'eye', as Penny would discover). The blue Gem had a gem in the palm of her right hand, while the red Gem's was in her left.

"Hello Penny." The blue Gem greeted, warmly.

"G... G... Garnet!?" Penny managed to spurt out, looking back and forth between the two Gems.

The red Gem ran over to Penny and playfully punched her arm. "Nice to meet you, soldier! My name's Ruby!" She proudly introduced herself, and pointed at her chest with her thumb.

"And I'm Sapphire." The other gently elaborated. "And yes, Garnet is the amalgamation of our physical forms."

Penny hadn't yet had fusion explained to her, and was struggling to keep up.

"You mean... you two...?"

In demonstration, Ruby and Sapphire joined hands, and quickly formed Garnet. Garnet gave a reassuring smile and a thumbs up, before separating again.

"Garnet is an expression of mine and Ruby's love for each other." Sapphire elaborated. "We're very different, but we get along so well, there aren't many things we need to do individually."

"But I guess training you is one of them, thanks to this big softy!" Ruby said, pulling Sapphire into a hug, causing her to giggle endearingly. "So, you still ready to train?"

Penny was somewhat overwhelmed. Having to suddenly accept the truth that one of her best friends and guardians, who she'd known all of her life, was actually two people, rather than one, was proving challenging, but it was made easier by the elements of Garnet's personality, she was already beginning to notice, in Ruby and Sapphire. Regardless of her shock, she did, very much, still want to be trained.

"You bet! Bring it on, shorty!" Penny grinned.

After quickly correcting her form again, Ruby and Penny began trading punches and blocks. Ruby had Penny practice several steps and maneuvers on her own, before helping her practice them. The day flew by, while the two trained, and Sapphire sat on the steps and excitedly cheered them both on.

As the sun was setting, and the clouds beneath them became an ocean of crimson and orange, Ruby and Penny were viciously sparring. Penny had picked up Ruby's lessons at an alarming rate, and had already mastered basic techniques that could take a human child weeks of training to figure out. They stepped around each other, striking, blocking and dodging with great skill and timing. Eventually, Ruby rolled clear of a thrust of Penny's elbow, and swept her student's feet from underneath her with a swing of her leg.

Sapphire made her way over to the pair, as Ruby helped Penny up, and the latter stifled a yawn. "I think it's time we get you home, Penny." Sapphire couldn't help but giggle at Penny's relentless enthusiasm.

"Whaaa?" Penny moaned. "But I can still fight, right Ruby?"

Ruby grinned at Penny's attempt to rally her to her side. "Sorry dude, boss's orders!"

Ruby and Sapphire joined hands and, with a flash of light, Garnet formed.

"You made amazing progress today, Penny!" She said, encouragingly.

Garnet lifted Penny up and sat her on her shoulder, before making her way to the warp pad.

"So how many more sessions until I'm a Crystal Gem?" Penny asked, excitedly.

Garnet laughed gently, as she reached the warp pad. "Oh Penny, you've been a Crystal Gem for a long time, now."

With a chiming sound from the pad, a column of light rose, and the pair vanished.


	4. The Birth of Holo-Penny

It was a typically bright and sunny day at Beach City, that found Rose Quartz sitting against the lighthouse by the cliff, above the temple, with Penny sitting next to her, resting her head on the large Gem's side, and strumming on an acoustic guitar. Amethyst was lying in Rose's lap, in the form of a very fluffy cat, purring loudly as her senior Gem petted her. Garnet had missed out on the social event, by embarking on a mission of her own, earlier that day, as she often tended to do.

While Penny played, Rose sang a song with a gentle melody, about a human woman she had been romantically attached to, several hundred years ago. Penny enjoyed the song greatly, and playing on her guitar. Greg had taught Penny to play several instruments, and her favorite was the drums, but practicality compelled her to play the guitar the most.

Despite the early hour, the serenity of Rose's song and the warm sunlight were making Penny drowsy. She slowly stopped playing her guitar, and rested her head deeper into the folds of Rose's dress, and was about to surrender to the lull of an afternoon nap, when a sudden discovery jolted her fully awake. Penny gasped loudly, causing Amethyst to give a feline screech of surprise, and revert her form, and then crawled over to the edge of the cliff.

"Look! Down there!" Penny gave an urgent whisper.

Amethyst crawled over and joined her. "What? That girl?"

Walking along the beach, was a young girl of Penny's age. She had dark skin, and long, bushy, black hair, and wore a pair of large, round spectacles, tinted a very light pink. She wore a sundress, similar to Penny's, except lime green, a pair of red wellington boots, and a large shoulder bag. She made her way to the base of the cliff, not far from where the two youngest Crystal Gems were spying on her, where she sat down and pulled a large book from her bag, and began to read.

Rose joined Penny and Amethyst at the cliff edge. "Penny, who is she?"

"I don't know..." Penny said, thoughtfully. "But I've been seeing her a lot lately. She just sits on the beach, and reads..."

"The beach is a wonderful place to read." Rose said, responding to the suspicious tone Penny was using.

"Yeah..." Penny agreed. "But we can't neglect the possibility that she's a spy! Or worse... an _alien_ spy!"

"Or a _zombie_ alien spy!" Amethyst suggested, with a grin.

"Or a zombie, _werewolf_ , alien spy!" Penny retorted.

"I think she's just reading her book." Rose said, with a giggle.

"We can't take that chance." Penny said, authoritively. "Amethyst, turn into a pair of binoculars!"

Amethyst quickly obliged, becoming a set of binoculars, with her own eyes peering over the top. Penny picked her up and trained her on the girl on the beach.

"Ugh... what? Amethyst! These don't have lenses!" Penny complained.

"Yeah dude, I'm not made of glass. Duh."

Penny and Amethyst had begun to neglect to lower their voices, and through her makeshift binoculars, Penny saw the girl look up at her. The aspiring investigator shrieked in surprise and pulled her head away from the cliff. Rose, on the other hand, grinned happily and waved at the girl. From her expression, it seemed as though Rose had gotten a wave back.

Before the conversation could continue, the small group was distracted by a distant, and distorted sound, like a loud moan, or a muffled roar. The sound had come from the ocean, looking in its direction, the Crystal Gems saw a mass of bubbles approaching the shore, increasing in intensity, until a monstrous creature leapt from the waves, and onto the beach.

The creature had a vertical, oblong body, and three legs, like a tall, misshapen spider. Above and between each leg, was a wide, yellow eye, beneath one of which, was its gaping, snarling mouth. From their viewpoint on the cliff, the Gems could see a flat, red gem on top of the monster's head. Immediately after landing on the beach, the monster roared, and charged directly at the girl.

"We have to save her!" Penny shrieked.

The Gems were about to leap from the cliff, and do just that, when pulse of white light shot from the gem on Penny's forehead, like a bullet, downwards, to the base of the cliff where, upon impact with the sand, it took a human form, like it was made of a viscous liquid. The entity Penny had made sprinted towards the girl, and tackled her out of the monster's path, leaving it to ram into the cliffside.

While the girl stared fearfully up at the monster, Amethyst came crashing down on the sand next to her, followed by Rose, floating gently, with Penny in her arms. Even though Amethyst believed strongly in living in the moment, Rose and Garnet had made her memorise one co-operative battle technique, to utilize in scenarios in which there were civilians in danger.

Rose grabbed Amethyst's ankles, and the purple Gem assumed the form of a gigantic baseball bat, in Rose's hands. With a devastating swing from Rose, the monster was struck high into the sky, soaring into the distance, along the shoreline.

"Wh... what was that?" The girl asked, understandably surprised. "Who are you people?"

"Crystal Gems... at your service..." Amethyst snorted, like it was no big deal, and she was embarrased to admit it. "Hey Penny, did I see you use an actual gem power just now?"

"Uhhh, Amethyst?"

Amethyst turned around to the sound of Penny's voice and yelped in surprise. She had directed her question at an exact duplicate of Penny, who had apparently been the manifestation who had saved the girl. Since then, the clone was standing perfectly upright, staring into the distance, unblinkingly.

"No waaay..." Amethyst whispered, poking the duplicate's cheek.

"Pennyyy!" Rose gasped in a gentle, yet astounded voice. "You projected a hologram! Just like your mother could!"

"Uhhh, not exactly!" Amethyst countered. "Pearl's holograms looked super fake, this one's a dead ringer for lil P!"

Amethyst gave Penny's hologram a particularly intense pinch, and it exploded in a burst of ribbon-like light beams.

Rose clapped her hands decisively. "At any rate, Amethyst, you and I need to go and capture that creature. Penny..." Rose crouched down to her young charge's eye level, and gave a massive grin. "We are so proud of you... but you stay here and keep an eye on our zombie werewolf situation."

Rose playfully tapped Penny's nose, before she and Amethyst leapt into the sky, in the direction of the creature they had repelled. Penny stared after them, reeling in the significance of her first gem power. She was eventually distracted by the voice of the girl she had saved.

"Zombie... werewolf...?" She asked, confusedly.

Penny turned to her and, when she realised what the girl had said, blushed. Curiously, to the girl, Penny's cheeks turned an almost purple-ish colour, rather than pink. "Oh! That was... nothing. Just Rose kidding around... I'm Penny."

"Connie."

There was an awkward pause, in which Penny casually wiped sand off her gem.

"Sooo... are you... magic?" Connie asked.

"I'm a Gem." Penny corrected. "The others say 'magic' sometimes, but I think it's just because they don't want to explain how super-advanced alien biology and geology work."

"Oh... cool." Connie said, as though that made perfect sense, even though it raised several more questions.

"I've never been able to use gem powers before!" Penny informed Connie. "I guess I should thank you for motivating me!"

"What?" Connie was confused for a second, before she gasped in sudden realisation. "Oh gosh! You saved my life just now! I should thank you! Th... thank you, so much!"

"Do you want to see if I can do it again?"

In the time it took Connie to realise Penny meant, see if she could project a hologram, rather than see if she could save her life, Penny had already turned around. She crouched down, and screwed up her face. Connie watched in wonder, as the gem on Penny's forehead glowed a brilliant white, and shot out a ball of light, which immediately took the form of a mirror image of its creator.

"Can you... make it do anything?" Connie asked, as Penny beamed gleefully at her creation.

"Hmm... well the last one tackled you out of the way... because I really wanted you to be safe."

Connie blushed slightly, and averted her eyes. "Well what do you wanna do now?"

"Hmm..." Penny stroked her chin. "I wanna..."

Before Penny finished her sentence, her hologram burst into life and ran towards the town. Penny burst out laughing, and ran after it.

"What? Where is it going?" Connie asked, giving chase.

"I wanna get doughnuts!" Penny cheered, finishing her sentence.


	5. Welcome to Beach City

The Big Doughnut in Beach City, was staffed by a pair of teenagers named Sadie and Lars. In more than one way, they were polar opposites of each other. Sadie was short and rather pudgy, while Lars was twice her height, but with the build of a stick figure. Sadie had a strong work ethic, and worked hard every day, while Lars was often absent, and when he did show up for work, didn't do much. One thing they did have in common, was moderate social anxiety, which Sadie expressed with awkward babbling, and Lars with an unconvincing aloof façade, another was an appreciation of Penny's positivity and antics (although reluctantly, in Lars' case).

Not long after the incident on the beach, Penny slammed the glass door open, with a large grin on her face, and marched inside, with the rigidness of a clockwork toy.

"Hey Penny." Sadie greeted. "You know you gotta go easy on that door. It's only built to withstand sugar rushed human kids." She smiled knowingly.

On an occasion which Sadie was reluctant to let Lars forget, Penny had critisised Lars of being rude to Sadie, and an argument had unfurled, which resulted in Lars trying to manually force Penny from the premises, which, in turn, resulted in Penny holding Lars in a headlock until he said uncle and apologised, much to Sadie's amusement. He had periodically challenged Penny to arm wrestling matches since, and always lost instantly.

"Hi Lars and Sadie! I'm Penny!" Penny said, loudly.

Lars and Sadie shared a confused look. "Yeah... We know..." Lars said, slowly.

"I'd like a doughnut please! Actually, two doughnuts! I mean... wait, what...?"

While Sadie and Lars spectated Penny's stranger-than-usual behavior, the real Penny and Connie were lying on the tarmac outside, watching the scene on the screen, on Penny's phone, the camera on which, she was subtly aiming through the shop front, while they remained concealed, giggling at their deception, or rather, they had, until Connie had presented Penny with a confusing concept.

"Your parents don't let you eat doughnuts?" Penny asked, confused.

"Nope. Trans fats." Connie explained.

Penny was no less confused. "But... they don't let you? What does that mean? How do they stop you?"

"They... tell me not to eat them, so I don't." Connie explained, confused by Penny's ignorance. "Don't your parents keep you from doing things?"

"Not really. I mean, the Gems don't let me fight monsters, but I guess that's reasonable." Penny replied. "Other than that, Rose says that freedom to make your own decisions is a fundamental right that we should all have, or fight for if we don't."

"Yeah but, we're kids." Connie half-heartedly argued. "Sometimes adults just know better."

Penny rolled her eyes. "Yeah, kids, not babies. We need to make our own mistakes, and learn from them, not just take other people's word for it."

Connie mulled Penny's insight over for a moment. "Did Rose say that, too?"

Penny grinned. "No, that was my dad."

Before the conversation could resume, Holo-Penny boisterously slammed the door open again and stepped out, before declaring, "I HAVE DOUGHNUTS!" And demonstrating, by lifting a doughnut into the air, in each hand.

Lars rushed out next. "Penny, you need to pay for those! I swear, if you've gone from beating me up, to shoplif..." He trailed off as he noticed a second Penny outside the shop. "What the...?"

As it turned out, while Penny was distracted, Holo-Penny had become obsessed with her last inputted command, and had leapt over the counter, helping herself to a pair of doughnuts, oblivious to Sadie and Lars' protests. Penny embarrassedly paid for the doughnuts, received some congratulations from Sadie, for her new power, and she and Connie went on their way, continuing their conversation. Before long, Holo-Penny dissipated, like the one on the beach had, presumably because her mission was complete.

"My parents can be a little controlling..." Connie confided, as they walked down the boardwalk. "Mostly my mom. She always says she knows what's best for me..."

Penny ate one of the doughnuts, making no effort to avoid getting jam on her face and hand. She snorted in laughter, through her mouthful.

"More than you do? That's ridiculous!" Penny committed a moment to thoughtful chewing, before continuing. "I don't want to get you in trouble, but if you want a doughnut, you should take one. I'd feel weird eating both of these."

Connie considered the proposal for just a moment, it was so unlike her to defy her parents, but her new friend had made some very compelling points. She grinned mischievously, as though tremendously excited.

"Okay, thanks!"

The two girls continued walking, as they happily ate, and before long, the neon sign of the car wash, It's A Wash, came into view, portraying an elephant hosing itself with its trunk, and the name of the wash emblazoned on its side.

"Hey, this is where my dad works! Let's go show him my new power!" Penny suggested.

"Oh... okay."

Greg Universe was a middle-aged man with an enthusiasm for vests and shorts, which, when combined with his glaringly apparent tan lines, betrayed his fondness for T-shirts and jeans, in his youth. He had a plentiful goatee, and hair which reached his waist, although neglected a large bald spot on his scalp. He was hosing down a car, when Penny had entered shouting distance of the wash.

"Hey daaaad!" She called, urgently, running over to him.

"Oh, hey shtoo-ball!" Greg returned his daughter's greeting. "What's up?"

"Check out what I can do!" Penny shouted, still running towards her father.

As Penny ran, she made a sweeping motion of her head, and four Holo-Pennys appeared, running towards Greg, with her. Before he could respond, expressing his astonishment, the five Pennys leapt at him, tackling him to the ground, and piling on top of him, giggling hysterically as they did. Despite his shock, Greg couldn't help but laugh too.

"Aw man, is this your first Gem power? These holograms are crazy realistic!"

The Pennys grinned mischievously, and began speaking, alternating between sentences.

"I know right?" "I bet you can't even tell which of us is real!" "Can you?" "DAD!?"

Greg didn't spend a moment attempting to determine the answer. "Nope." He said, closing his eyes, smugly. "So far as I'm concerned, you're all my daughters, and now I have to choose a favourite! Let's see..."

While all five Pennys giggled, Greg noticed Connie for the first time, standing at the edge of the car wash's driveway, awkwardly averting her eyes from Penny and Greg's roughhousing.

"Hey kid, you okay over there? You lost?" He called, welcomingly.

Still, Penny refused to make it too obvious which Penny was real. "That's Connie." "She helped me unlock my power!" "By getting attacked by a monster!"

"I... didn't really do anything." Connie admitted, as she walked over.

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Connie." Greg greeted her. "I'd shake your hand, but my... _favourite daughter_ is pinning me down right now."

The Penny hanging onto Greg's right arm let go and held her head in shock. "Oh my gosh! _I'm_ the favourite!? That's too... much... pressure!" With that, she revealed herself to be a hologram by exploding in a burst of light.

Connie and Greg both laughed at Penny's antics.

"Well, sorry shtoo-ball, but you're pranking a guy who spent years on the receiving end of hologram-based tomfoolery, and I learnt a trick or two."

Before Penny could ask what he meant, Greg grabbed the hose from where he'd dropped it, and doused himself, and all four Pennys pinning him down. One after the other, the holograms fizzled away, leaving his real, soggy daughter sitting on his torso, giggling happily.

"Well anyway," Greg said, climbing to his feet. "you kids better run along, so I can clean this car, before Barb gets back. I prefer to stay on her good side, in case she starts eyeballing my mail."

Penny and Connie spent the remainder of the afternoon visiting Penny's favourite places in Beach City, learning about each other, and experimenting with Penny's powers. Eventually, Connie had to find her dad so they could go home, so exchanged contact details with Penny, and the two went their separate ways. Back at the house, Penny found her fellow Crystal Gems. Garnet had been successful in her mission, as had Amethyst and Rose.

"So, did you have fun with that girl?" Amethyst asked, with a suggestive tone, which Penny didn't understand the meaning of.

"Yeah, she seemed pretty cool." Penny replied.

"So what do you think?" Rose asked, with a grin. "Zombie, werewolf, or both?"

Penny giggled. "I don't think she's a _zombie_... but I'll definitely need to see her again to make sure."


	6. Shaky Start

When the glow of the warp pad faded, the Crystal Gems found themselves in a deep, underground cavern, devoid of sunlight. It would have been pitch black, were it not for the glowing, multi-coloured crystals sticking out of the rock face. Garnet had unfused shortly before the mission, so that Ruby could more directly coach her pupil, on her first mission, although ready to refuse at a moment's notice.

Ruby had recently begun training Penny to use training sticks to block and attack, which she said would build her towards fighting with swords and axes. Rose had taken Penny to her arsenal, and summoned an indestructible Gem staff for her to use, on the mission. It resembled a glowing white pole, with intricate, metallic grips at each end.

"Penny, welcome to the Gemstone Caverns!" Rose said, proudly.

"Wooow..." Penny breathed, taking in the glittering crystals surrounding them. "What is this place?"

"A long time ago, Gems were going to harvest these crystals, to make processing units for Gem technology." Sapphire explained, as the group made their way deeper into the caverns, in search of the monster, Garnet had sensed.

"Processing units...?" Penny repeated. "Like computers?"

Amethyst chuckled gently. "Yeah, Gems make everything out of crystals, it's like... 'hey Homeworld, it's called plastic! Try it sometime!'"

Further down, into the tunnel's depths, the group found a crossroad, at which the tunnel branched off in both directions. The glittering crystals lit the paths as they stretched away, but they soon curved out of sight.

"Sapphire?" Rose prompted.

Sapphire gently held her temple, while she focused. "The creature's movements are erratic... it could be anywhere."

"Okay." Rose replied, with the resolve of a Gem with a plan. "We split up. Amethyst, you come with me. Ruby, Sapphire and Penny, you take the other path."

"Yes ma'am..." Amethyst said, casually, as she strolled over to Rose.

As Penny's group followed their own path, Ruby turned to Penny.

"So, you think you're ready, soldier?" Ruby asked, jokingly, and then gave a sly smile. "Think fast!"

Ruby thrust her fist at Penny, summoning her gauntlet as she did. Penny quickly pushed Ruby's fist aside with her stick and then struck at the shorter Gem's feet with the other end. Ruby jumped over Penny's attack and lunged with her other fist, which Penny, with lightning reflexes, caught in the palm of her hand. Ruby's sneak attacks were a fairly common occurrence, when Garnet was unfused. They were supposed to test Penny's reflexes, but unfortunately, the red Gem wasn't very good at subtlety, and Penny almost always saw them coming.

Sapphire giggled gently, covering her mouth. "Save some energy for the monster, you two!"

The group continued in relative silence for a few moments, with all of them looking around carefully, for any sign of a monster. It was Penny who spoke first.

"So, Ruby, how long do you think it'll be until I can summon my weapon?" She asked.

Ruby looked back at her, with concern and guilt on her face, clearly reluctant to say anything which might discourage her hybrid student. Eventually, she answered by shrugging.

"Gems don't age or mature, Penny, but humans do." Sapphire said. "And no human has ever had to develop Gem powers as they age, so there's no way of knowing."

Ruby quickly interjected, in response to Penny's somewhat downtrodden reaction. "B... but the way you're progressing? You'll be able to kick any Gem warrior's butt in no time! Weapons or no!"

Penny smirked, grateful for Ruby's reassurance. Not long after that, the team was about to round a corner, into what seemed like a spacious cavern, when Sapphire rested a hand on Ruby and Penny's shoulders. "It's here." She whispered.

With a brief nod of consent to each other, Ruby and Sapphire took hands, and quickly and quietly formed Garnet. "Get ready Penny, this is going to be tough." She said.

With a battle cry from the latter, Garnet and Penny leapt around the corner and prepared their weapons. The chamber was brightly illuminated by a dense cluster of crystals on the ceiling, but most of the light seemed to be coming from a tall and thin gem, hovering in the centre of the chamber. Its body was a formless, gelatinous cloud, floating aimlessly around it.

Garnet took a step forwards, and, with a sparkle of white light, the Gem's body reformed. It was colourless and translucent, like glass, the gem rested at her core, but most notably, the body she had generated was exactly the same shape as Garnet.

"Be careful Penny..." Garnet warned. "It's mirroring us."

"Ooh, that's cool!" Penny remarked, not taking Garnet's warning as seriously as she should. "Do me! Do me!"

Penny raced over to Garnet's side and braced her staff, but the monster didn't change its shape.

"Well that's rude!" Penny snapped. "I'm a Crystal Gem too, you know!"

Without sparing the time to console Penny, Garnet lunged at the monster. It ducked under Garnet's fist, only for the fusion to thrust backwards with her elbow, colliding violently with the monster's glass visor. The two quickly circled around each other, blocking and trading punches. Even with Garnet's future vision, the monster's talent for mimicry made it difficult to overcome.

After a few minutes, with neither combatant doing any serious damage to the other, Penny interjected. "Garnet! Let me try. I have an idea!"

Garnet cringed as she defended against a flurry of punches from the monster, but ultimately chose to trust Penny, which she communicated with a curt nod. Once the monster's attack ceased, Garnet backflipped away from it, allowing Penny to charge underneath her and strike with her staff. Just as Penny predicted, the monster instantly assumed Penny's form, and defended, holding her own staff, perpendicular.

With a mighty heave, Penny sent the monster sliding backwards. Focusing just slightly, Penny projected a Holo-Penny on the other side of her adversary, holding a staff of her own, and they struck as one. Darting its head left and right, the monster leapt forwards and rolled clear of the attack. The Pennys readied their weapons and advanced carefully. Garnet gave a proud grin at Penny's strategy, watching with her arms folded.

"What's the matter?" One of the Pennys goaded. "Can't keep up with our mad powers?" Said the other.

One of the Pennys swung horizontally at the monster, prompting it to leap upwards, giving the other Penny the opportunity to thrust with her staff. The monster's weapon vanished and it grabbed the other end of Penny's staff as she forced its back against the cave wall. For a moment, it seemed like the battle was won, the other Penny had the perfect chance to destroy the monster's form and let Garnet bubble it, but before she could, the monster lifted its legs and kicked the Penny holding her, squarely on her gem.

As it turned out, that Penny was the real one, as she cried out in pain, dropped her staff and stumbled backwards onto the floor. Holo-Penny vanished, the second the kick connected. Garnet cried out in anguish, as she noticed a small crack, running through the centre of Penny's gem. With a cry of desperation and fury, Garnet rocketed across the chamber, with a gauntlet on her fist. The monster was in the process of assuming Garnet's form, when the fusion destroyed it, with a punch that rattled the entire cavern.

Garnet quickly bubbled the gem, before it hit the floor, and sent it to the temple, before turning to Penny. The young half-Gem was still lying on her back, with her eyes wide open in surprise.

"G... Garnet?" Penny murmured, as Garnet leaned into her field of vision.

"P... Penny, I'm sorry! Y... your Gem...!" Garnet all but shouted.

Wasting no time, Garnet scooped Penny into her arms, and raced back the way she had come, in search of Rose. Penny knew where they were going, she had seen Rose heal Amethyst several times over the years, when Penny and Amethyst got carried away, and Amethyst ended up hurting herself. This was the first time Penny's gem had cracked though, and the Gems had always been slightly worried what the effect on a half-human would be, and if Rose's tears would work the same.

As it turned out, Penny's sense of balance had vanished the moment her gem was cracked. The caves seemed to spin around her as Garnet sprinted through them, making her nauseous. She also felt a chill washing over her, as though she was submerged in icy water. Although Amethyst certainly seemed to share the first symptom when she was cracked, she had never expressed discomfort, the likes of which Penny was feeling. Additionally, Penny could feel tears streaming from her eyes, which was odd, since, although anxious and afraid, she didn't feel like she was crying.

Eventually, Garnet leapt into a narrow chasm, and came crashing down at the bottom, immediately in front of the other two Crystal Gems, much to their surprise.

"Rose! Tears!" Garnet demanded.

Amethyst and Rose gathered around her and gasped at the sight of Penny's gem.

"Penny!" Rose cried in concern. She blinked several times, and tears began to flow down her face.

Rose ran her hand along her cheek and rested a tear-soaked finger on Penny's gem. Amethyst and Rose bit their tongues and leaned in close. After what felt like an age (but was actually only a few seconds), Penny's gem glowed brightly, and the crack slowly receded to nothingness. Penny sighed in relief as her sense of balance returned and the cave stopped spinning. She reached up and ran her hand over her gem, gratefully.

"Thanks Rose..." She sighed.

Garnet gently put Penny down, but she held the taller Gem's hand uncertainly, as she found her balance.

"Dude... are you okay?" Amethyst asked, anxiously.

"I... I think so?" Penny said, not sounding confident. "I feel kinda different."

"Are you in pain?" Rose asked, covering her mouth as she gasped.

"No... why...?" Penny asked, believing that the panic that remained on the Crystal Gems' faces was excessive, now that she'd been healed.

Garnet crouched down to her eye level. "You're still crying." She answered Penny's question.

Penny reached up to her eyes in disbelief. It was true. Tears were pouring from Penny's eyes in excess. Now that she thought about it, she could even hear the drips as they fell to the cave floor. That was certainly unusual...


	7. Somewhere Familiar

Penny was acutely aware that she was dreaming. Of course, humans occasionally had lucid dreams, but Penny felt as though this was different. She could just about remember going to bed, after her mission. After her brush with shattering, the Gems had been very reluctant to let Penny out of their sight, especially Rose, but she had eventually persuaded them to give her some privacy. She had soon fallen asleep, and went on to have a dream about having a marshmallow-eating competition with Connie, which had abruptly ended, and now she was here.

Penny was standing in a long and tall corridor. The floor was made up of tastefully multi-coloured tiles, the walls were lined with sets of double, wooden doors, but most notably of all, Penny was ankle-deep in crystal-clear, gently running water.

"Where am I?" Penny whispered to herself. Her voice was strangely distorted, like how voices sounded when one had gone through a tunnel, in a train, and their ears hadn't popped yet.

She made her way over to one of the sets of double doors, and threw them open. Inside, were several sets of attractive, marble shelves, housing an assortment of objects with no discernable pattern between them. There was a yo-yo, a mug which read "World's Best Mom", several perfectly ripe lemons, an instruction manual for a refrigerator, a video of an old movie Penny remembered her dad mentioning occasionally, as well as several unidentifiable objects of Gem origin.

Penny closed the door, her thirst for answers unabated, and made her way down the corridor, occasionally opening another set of doors, only to find more miscellaneous bric-a-brac. Eventually, the corridor ended in a small, circular room, with an elegant statue of a Gem that Penny didn't recognise in the centre, striking a ballet pose.

There were three corridors leading away from this room, including the one Penny had come from, and each one had a finely-carved, wooden sign hanging over it. The corridor Penny had come from, was labelled "Junk", the second corridor apparently housed "Pictures", the third corridor had a bright light shining from it, and was where the water on the floor was flowing from. The sign read "Hub".

"Hub" sounded promising, and Penny was curious to see the source of the water, but "Pictures" also sounded like a good source of answers. As a seasoned video-gamer, though, Penny knew to explore every dead end, before heading to her mission objective, so as to find everything, and the Hub definitely wasn't a dead end, so she made her way down the Picture Corridor.

The walls of the corridor were, as the sign had indicated, covered in pictures, ranging from elaborate paintings in exquisite frames, to posters, and even polaroid camera pictures. There were dozens of subjects, most of which Penny recognised, including the Crystal Gems, her dad, and several of the adults from Beach City. All of the humans in the pictures looked at least ten years younger than Penny knew them to be. Almost all of the people Penny didn't recognise, were in paintings and sketches, rather than photographs, and most of them were Gems.

There was one subject, who was in the vast majority of the pictures, and who was the focus of several very old-looking paintings, and even a handful of selfies, which seemed to have been taken with a pre-digital camera. It was a Gem, Penny would recognise anywhere, despite never having met. Her distinctive, slender figure, ghostly skin and sleek, gravity-resistant hair made her easy to identify, not to mention the smooth round gem on her forehead, which Penny saw in the mirror, every day.

"Mom...?"

-x-x-x-

"Penny...? Penny?"

Penny slowly opened her eyes and groaned. "Rose?"

The large, pink Gem was kneeling next to Penny's bed, anxiously watching over the young hybrid, blotting out her view of the house, with her plentiful hair. She had gently woken Penny up, by lightly shaking her shoulder.

"Penny, are you alright?" Rose asked, gently.

Penny groaned irritably. She appreciated the concern from Rose, but she had gotten more than her fill, the previous evening. "Rose, I'm fine! You healed me up yesterday, it's okay!"

Rose frowned, reluctant to press the issue, but her expression made it seem like there had been a reason for Penny's rude, albeit gentle awakening. Penny sat up, to Rose's eye level.

"What is it?" She asked, slightly nervous.

"Your gem was glowing..." Rose replied.

Penny reached up to her gem, inquisitively.

"Were you... having a happy dream?" Rose asked, optimistically. Penny's gem did glow when she was emotional, including in a dream, but last night's events had made Rose paranoid about her young charge's health.

Penny tried to remember. The details were fading, as was the case with dreams, upon awakening. "I don't think so... I was... in some kind of library? Or museum? I can't remember..."

Penny rested her hand on her pillow, to push herself to the edge of the bed, and gasped in surprise and disgust. Her pillow was soaking wet. Penny quickly connected the dots and felt her face.

"I'm still crying!? What the heck?" She demanded.

"And you're still not... actually crying?" Rose asked.

"No! I don't feel sad about anything!" Penny answered.

Penny climbed out of bed and ran to the bathroom, underneath her small bedroom. She thoroughly washed her face, and then rubbed it feverishly with a towel. Once she was washed and dried, she stared, unblinkingly, at her reflection in the mirror. To her disbelief, more tears began to trickle down her cheeks. Penny left the bathroom, just as the temple door slid open, and Amethyst and Garnet entered the house.

"Hey lil' P!" Amethyst greeted her. "What's going on with... whoa..."

"You're still crying." Garnet pointed out.

"I know!" Penny said, exasperated. "Garnet, do you know how long this is gonna last?"

Garnet adjusted her visor slightly. "Not long." She said, casually.

"Ugh, good!" Penny groaned.

Penny changed from her nightdress, into her sundress and shorts, and joined Amethyst and Rose for a pancake breakfast, before leaving for the beach, where she had made arrangements to meet Connie, a couple of days earlier. The two girls quickly saw each other, coming from opposite directions, and Penny broke into a run, reaching out for a hug, which Connie consented to by grinning and reaching back.

"Connie!" Penny happily greeted her, after throwing her arms around her friend.

Connie giggled at Penny's enthusiasm. "Hey Penny! Oh... you're..."

"… crying. I know." Penny sighed, stepping away.

"Is everything okay?" Connie asked, worriedly.

"Yeah, everything's fine! I cracked my gem yesterday, and I haven't been able to stop since!"

The two began walking along the beach. Penny told Connie about her adventures, the previous day, and what it meant for a gem to be cracked, and how Penny's ongoing symptoms were so unusual.

"It's normal for Gems to cry when they're sad... but I'm not even sad right now! I'm just annoyed that I can't stop crying!" Penny elaborated.

Connie held her chin, thoughtfully, as though trying to think of a solution to Penny's problem. They both took a moment of silent contemplation, in which Penny's tears ran over the corners of her mouth. She frowned and licked her lips, to spare herself the irritation, and suddenly stopped in her tracks.

"Penny...?" Connie turned around, upon noticing that Penny had stopped.

Suddenly, Penny ran her hand over her face, and then ran her fingers over her outstretched tongue, much to Connie's surprise and minor disgust.

"Wait... these aren't tears!" Penny realised.

"They aren't?"

"No, tears taste salty!"

"What does that taste like?"

"Nothing! It's just... water..."

Penny slowed down as the word 'water' rang in her ears, and she tried to remember the significance. Piece by piece, Penny's dream from the last night began to come back to her, from the running water, to the storage cabinets, to the countless pictures of her mom and the people she had known.

Penny gasped. "Connie, I had a dream last night! I think it has something to do with this! I was in a place I'd never seen before, and there was running water on the floor!"

Connie pointed at Penny, as if to agree with her. "It's not scientifically possible to dream about something you've never seen!" She said, suggesting that Penny was right to think that her dream held significance.

"If I can go back into my dream, maybe I can find out what that place is, and where the water's coming from!" Penny suggested.

"So, you're just gonna go to sleep? Right now?" Connie asked, skeptical of Penny's ability to do that, so early in the morning.

"Hmm, maybe not. Gems don't need to sleep to use their powers... Maybe I just need to be really relaxed?"

Connie thought for a moment, before arriving at an idea. "We could try meditating!"

"Like Lonely Blade!" Penny enthusiastically agreed.

"I'm not allowed to watch those movies, but sure!"

Connie unlocked her phone and accessed a TubeTube video, which promised several hours of calming ambience sounds. The two girls sat cross-legged, on the sand, facing each other, and began slowly breathing in and out, with the crashing of the waves. After just a few minutes, Connie opened her eyes, in response to a gentle, chiming sound, and gasped to notice Penny's gem glowing.

"Penny?" Connie called, gently, getting no response.

Gently, Connie reached up and attempted to tap Penny's gem, but gasped again, as her finger simply passed through it, into her friend's forehead. Curiously, Connie probed further, allowing her whole hand to phase into Penny's gem. By the time it occurred to Connie that what she was doing might be considered invasive, she noticed her hand was being pulled in, and by the time she amended her footing, so as to resist, it was too late. With a gleaming flash of light, Connie vanished, and Penny was left alone, with her eyes closed, sitting in the sand.


	8. Journey to the Centre of Penny

Penny was back in her unusual surroundings. With her eyes closed, and her mind clear, she hadn't even noticed her transition, until she felt the chill of the cool water she was sitting in. She opened her eyes and stood up. Looking around, she found she was back in the Pictures Corridor. Having entered the mysterious building consciously, rather than in her sleep, Penny found herself far more lucid and aware of herself. She was just about to embark towards the room labelled "Hub", and the source of the water, when she was distracted.

From behind Penny, and the other side of the attractive, marble ceiling, the sound of alarmed screaming was getting rapidly louder. Seconds after Penny turned around, Connie phased through the ceiling, with a sparkle of white light, and landed, face-down in the water, with a resounding splash.

"Connie!?" Penny gasped. "How did you get here!?"

Connie looked up, wearily. Her glasses had fallen off when she hit the floor, and she quickly picked them up, before the flowing water washed them away. "I got sucked into your..." She trailed off as she looked up at Penny. "… your Gem..."

The way Connie had ended her sentence, made it seem like a point of its own, especially since she was staring in shock at Penny's forehead.

"What about my...?" Penny began, reaching upwards, but her blood ran cold as she realised exactly what was wrong with her gem... it was gone. "MY GEM!" She cried. "How can my gem be gone!? It's half of my entire being! Am I a clone of my dad now? Do I have a beard!?"

While Penny ran her hands over her face and hair, to determine if she was a clone of her father, Connie braced her hands at her friend, in an attempt to pacify her.

"Penny, calm down, I have a theory!" She said. "What if your gem isn't on your forehead... because we're in it right now!? I got here after my hand got pulled into your gem, and this must be where all the water you're crying is coming from!"

Penny's expression was one of realisation. "Of course!" She declared. "My mom used to be able to pull all sorts of stuff from her gem. I always figured she could just make stuff, like a 3-D printer, I never thought there was a whole building in here..." Penny almost reached for her gem, before remembering it wasn't on her forehead.

Connie elaborated. "And I bet that when your gem got cracked, it must have broken something, like a pipe, or an aquarium!"

"Well then I guess you can call us the Crystal Plumbers!" Penny said, with a huge grin.

The two of them took just a few steps down the corridor, before Connie put her glasses back on and gasped. "Oh no! My glasses!"

Penny turned around, and noticed the problem. After falling through the ceiling, Connie's body had apparently dispersed the water enough, for her glasses to fall, unabated, and crack on the tiled floor.

"I'm sorry!" Penny cried, feeling bad for her involvement in the mishap. "Are you gonna be able to see alright?"

Connie lifted and lowered her glasses, experimentally. The glass on both lenses was cracked, and fine fractures ran over most of the surface of both. "I'll probably see better without them... My mom's gonna be so mad..."

Penny noticed Connie squinting strenuously. "Do you... wanna hold my hand?" She offered.

Connie blushed, just slightly, before accepting Penny's offer, and the two of them walked against the gentle flow of the water, towards the Hub. As it turned out, the Hub was a large, circular garden, with more tiled flooring, leading out of the corridors, which stretched in all directions, and towards a beautiful, white fountain in the middle, displaying a statue of a Gem with long hair and a flowing dress, casting water out of the palm of her hand, which she was pointing dramatically at the sky. Between the paths, were perfectly triangular patches of grass and flower beds. The walls between the corridors stretched upwards, before quickly vanishing into a bright, white light, shining from overhead.

Despite its nature, the fountain wasn't the source of the water. The water cast from the Gem's hand, fell safely into the surrounding pool, as it should. The water on the floor, flowed across the Hub, from a corridor labelled "Gem Tech."

"The Gems say I shouldn't mess with Gem artifacts that I find." Penny told Connie, after revealing where they were going. "But this is probably an emergency."

"That's true." Connie agreed. "What if you drowned in tears? Or made your eyes really sore?"

The Gem Tech corridor was different from the Junk corridor. Rather than haphazardly stashed in cupboards, the gadgets were proudly displayed in glass cabinets. Penny couldn't begin to guess what a single one of them did, but they all incorporated one or more small gemstones, housed in metal casings of various shapes and colours. The corridor ended in a wide, circular room, with another fountain, where the source of the water became clear.

Just as Connie had predicted, the damage to Penny's gem could be seen, from the inside. Just like on a human wound, a large scar ran through the room, from the wall, across the floor, and through the fountain. The room had repaired itself, albeit somewhat misshapen and distorted, but several Gem devices still lay on the floor, and even though the fountain was repaired, water was climbing out of it, of its own accord.

"Connie, can you see this?" Penny asked, unsure of the severity of her friend's debilitation.

The girls ran over to the fountain, and Connie squinted at the unusual phenomenon. "That's weird!" Connie confirmed.

"Stay! Stay!" Penny demanded, as she swatted at the water, to no avail.

"Penny, what's that?" Connie asked, pulling on Penny's hand and pointing at the floor, by the fountain.

Of the handful of devices that littered the room's floor, one of the had a glowing gem. Penny walked over and picked it up. The second she did, the gem's light faded, and the water stopped flowing.

Penny sighed in relief. "Thank goodness for that... I was beginning to worry I'd never use the same pillow, two nights in a row, again!"

"What is that thing?" Connie repeated.

It was an ornate, grey mirror, with a waving frame, like rippling water, and a face with two overlapping squares etched into it, forming an eight-pointed star. On the back, was a blue, teardrop-shaped gem, with a hefty crack running through it.

"It's some kind of Gem mirror..." Penny said.

"How is a mirror, tech?" Connie wondered aloud.

"Well it must have been controlling the water, before I picked it up... But yeah... Why would it need to be a mirror?" Penny agreed.

After a moment of fruitless contemplation, Connie continued. "Well, I guess we just need to get it out of here, and it's mission accomplished!"

Penny didn't immediately agree. "Yeah... but before we leave, I just gotta check something."

Penny led Connie by the hand, back to the hub, where she requested Connie wait for a moment. Penny raced down a corridor she had spotted earlier, labelled "Elixers". Moments later, she sprinted back, holding a small, crystal bottle, full of clear liquid.

"Connie!" She cheered victoriously. "I found it!"

"What? What's this all about?" Connie asked, confused.

"You remember earlier, I was telling you about how my gem got cracked? Well this is how it was healed! This is a vial of Rose's tears! My mom must have kept some in here, for emergencies."

"Oh... that's... cool?" Connie said, not understanding Penny's point.

Realising this, Penny shook her head. "No... no... You don't get it, Rose doesn't just heal gems! She can heal anything! If you get some of this on you, and you won't need glasses anymore!"

"Whoa, really!?" Connie asked.

Obviously, it wasn't as simple a decision as it seemed, at first glance. Having her eyes healed by alien remedies would raise questions from her parents, which she didn't feel prepared to deal with, but on the other hand, her severely limited eyesight was a significant burden. Ultimately, the destruction of her glasses helped Connie make her decision.

"Alright! But... let's see if we can get out of here first. It might not work in here, if I'm being stored as data or something."

"Alright..." Penny sighed, closing her eyes and focusing.

Penny wasn't sure if she should concentrate on the beach, or just on leaving the storage building, but she found that, as soon as she calmed herself and cleared her mind, she could feel the caress of the ocean breeze, and the crashing of the waves. She quickly stood up, and discovered she was still holding the mirror, and the phial of tears. She dropped them on the sand, closed her eyes, and concentrated once more.

"Connie... Connie... Connie..." She whispered, envisioning her friend, and gently massaging her gem.

After a few seconds of concentrating and internal prayer, Penny's gem illuminated, and a small white sphere shot out of it, rapidly expanding into the form of her friend, as Connie fell, haphazardly onto the beach.

"Connie!"

"You did it!"

The two spared a moment for relieved laughter, as their unspoken fear of either of them being trapped in Penny's gem was abated.

"So, you wanna see if I can pull off one more miracle today?" Penny smiled, as she picked up the bottle of Rose's tears.

"Okay!" Connie said, loudly. "Heal me up!"

Penny flicked off the bottle-stopper, and poured the contents into the palm of her hand, which she brought up and rested on Connie's forehead. Connie blinked several times, then squinted, and rubbed her eyes. She gaped in awe, as the sunlit beach swam into impeccable focus.

"Oh my gosh, it worked!" Connie cheered.

"Hooray!" Penny shared in her friend's glee.

The two friends raced across the beach, as Connie relished in her newfound eyesight, taking joy in simply looking at things, without her glasses, while Penny took similar pleasure in her absence of tears. While the pair shared in their hyperactivity, neither noticed the droplet, in Penny's tear-soaked palm, as it ran down the handle of the mirror, and across the cracked gem on its back.


	9. Trapped in a Mirror

The following morning, Penny slowly stirred from her sleep, as the warm sunlight began to fill the house. The previous day, after hers and Connie's adventure, she had asked the Gems about the mirror she had found, and they had simply told her that it was a device for storing and relaying data, and had no explanation for the fact that it seemed able to control water, nor the fact that it wouldn't respond to anyone's questions. Figuring it still worked as a mirror, Penny left it by her bed.

After stretching sleepily, Penny thought of the mirror, turned over to see it, before screeching in alarm and shooting upwards. When she had looked in the mirror, there hadn't been a doubt in her mind, that there was some blue, humanoid figure standing next to her bed, looking at her, but when she spun around, the house was empty. She picked up the mirror and looked in it, then trained it at the spot where she had seen the figure. Nothing.

Penny detested those people in TV and movies, who experienced very explicit supernatural incursions, then assumed they hadn't, since they couldn't explain them. Despite her groggy state and the early hour, Penny was certain of what she'd seen.

"H... hello?" She whispered, towards the room. She looked back at the mirror. "Mirror? Was that you, being weird?"

After getting no response. Penny carefully climbed out of bed, and took the mirror to the kitchen. Currently, her two working theories, were that there was some kind of reverse-vampire in the house, who could only be seen in mirrors, or that the reflection viewed in this particular mirror, was some kind of alternate dimension, like the temple.

She propped up the mirror on the breakfast counter, and got some flour, sugar and milk from the kitchen, and got to work, making pancake batter, all while keeping one eye on the mirror. A few minutes later, Penny had amassed a sizeable stack of pancakes, and was cooking the last of the batter, when the temple door slid open, and Amethyst appeared.

"Hey Amethyst!" Penny called. "Think fast!"

She swung her frying pan like a baseball bat, and Amethyst quickly leapt in the direction of the flying pancake, catching it in her mouth, and acrobatically rolling across the floor.

"Nice catch." Penny laughed.

"Nice pancake." Amethyst replied, contentedly. "You gonna eat the rest of those?"

"Yes." Penny said, pulling the plate away from the hungry Gem, squinting suspiciously, and emptying half a bottle of syrup onto it. "I'm a growing girl..."

While Penny ate with one hand, and repeatedly shoed Amethyst away with the other, she looked back at the mirror, worriedly.

"...ey Ame...yst..." Penny said, through a mouthful of pancakes, before swallowing. "Are you sure this thing if just for telling people about stuff?"

"The mirror?" Amethyst asked. "No clue. I've never seen that thing before. Your mom must have picked it up before I joined the team, probably on Homeworld."

"So, you don't know where my mom found it, or anything?" Penny asked, disappointed.

"Nah. You should ask Rose or Garnet, if you need to know about Gem stuff like that. You want advice on food or wrestling? I'm your Gem." Amethyst replied, proudly.

Penny ate some more, before, on one of her frequent checks on the mirror, she gasped loudly, at the sight of a brief flash of blue. She choked on her mouthful slightly, and shot to her feet.

"There she is!" She cried, grabbing the mirror.

"There who is?" Amethyst replied, slowly sliding Penny's plate towards herself.

"There's someone in this mirror!" Penny said, urgently, staring at it and turning it left and right, to see behind her.

"Yeah... You, doofus." Amethyst snorted.

Penny began walking backwards around the house, examining everything with the mirror. "No, it's like... there's a person who's not here... except in this mirror."

Amethyst headed for the front door, with Penny's plate of pancakes in-hand. "Yeah, whatever, weirdo. Thanks for the pancakes." She laughed.

A few seconds after the door closed, Penny froze in place. Behind her, a blue face was poking from behind one of the house's support beams. Penny didn't risk taking her eyes off it, to check if its owner was really behind her, since she doubted she was.

"Hi..." Penny said, softly, with a trace of anticipation.

The blue person emerged from behind the pillar, and walked closer to Penny. She had light blue skin, and darker blue, medium length hair. She wore a halter top and a flowing skirt, both the same colour as her hair, and was barefoot. Penny assumed she was a Gem, despite no gemstone being visible.

"Hi..." A hesitant, muffled voice, came from the mirror. "Do you really not know where I came from?"

Penny was astounded by the nature of the conversation she was having, but quickly and politely replied. "No! I only just learnt that I could take stuff out of my gem, and you were in there!" Penny said.

The Gem looked fearful and distrusting. "What? B... but I was hidden away in the gemstone of the Gem that found me! How could I be in someone else's..." Suddenly, the Gem ran close to the mirror, in the reflection. Penny looked over her shoulder, but sure enough, she still wasn't there in the real world. When she looked back, the Gem's face was directly next to her own, and she was staring at Penny's gem. "It _is_ you!" She gasped. "Why are you taunting me like this!? Just leave me alone!"

Suddenly, the Gem raced from the borders of the mirror, Penny could have sworn she had seen tears forming in her eyes.

"Wait!" Penny called, swinging the mirror left and right, but unable to find the Gem again. "I'm not who you think I am! This is gonna sound crazy but... my gem used to belong to someone else!"

Penny waited, with baited breath. Although the blue Gem didn't re-enter the reflection, her quiet voice replied, a few seconds later.

"… What?"

"My mom gave up her physical form to make me, and now her gem is a part of me..." Penny half-heartedly explained, never having fully understood the mechanics herself. "I don't know what happened between you and my mom, but I'm sure she never meant to hurt you, and neither do I!"

There was another, even longer pause. "Why should I trust you?"

Penny thought of a reasonable answer. "Because you're stuck in a reflection, regardless of whether or not I help you?" Penny offered, hesitantly.

After yet another pause, the Gem returned to the frame of the mirror. Her expression seemed to acknowledge that Penny had a point. "Okay, if you really aren't who I think you are, then listen up- I'm not some Gem tool, I _am_ a Gem, just like you!"

Penny doubted that, but sensed it wasn't the time to elaborate on her own origin story.

"Turn the mirror around." The Gem instructed.

Penny did, seeing the blue, teardrop-shaped gemstone on the back. She remembered it being cracked yesterday. She soon deduced that some of Rose's tears must have gotten on it.

"That's me!" The Gem in the mirror said, insistently. "I'm a Lapis Lazuli!"

"Oh!" Penny realised. "And you can't form, since the frame of this mirror is blocking you! Don't worry, I'll get you out right now!"

Penny rested the mirror, face-down on the breakfast counter, and made her way to the cutlery drawer, where she retrieved a butter knife.

"R... really?" Lapis asked. She clearly very much wanted to be freed, but sounded afraid to get her hopes up.

"Of course!" Penny said, as she placed the point of the knife between the gem and the mirror, and began exerting pressure. "I guess you couldn't talk when your gem was cracked, but if you could have, I'm sure my mom would have done the same."

Seconds before Penny freed Lapis, the temple door opened once more, and Garnet and Rose came walking out of Garnet's room. They had been deep in conversation about a certain bubbled Gem, but were distracted by Penny.

"Good morning, Penny." Rose greeted. "What are you doing?"

Half way through Rose's sentence, Penny succeeded in sliding her knife between Lapis and the mirror, and the tiny gem flew from Penny, into the centre of the living room. Rose and Garnet stared at it in alarm, as though a wild animal had forced its way into the house.

The gem glowed, and lifted into the air, filling the house with a dazzling, blue light.

"Penny, come over to us, quick!" Garnet ordered.

Penny was conflicted. She trusted Garnet, and didn't want to disappoint her, but on the other hand, her new friend was clearly very timid and distrusting, and Penny didn't want her to feel ganged up on, especially if Garnet intended to be hostile towards her, albeit in the interest of protecting Penny.

From the gem, the form Penny had seen in the mirror materialised, beginning at the base of the neck, where the gem ultimately took residence. Lapis' skirt, and the ribbons with which her top was tied together fluttered, as though being blown by wind, until she came resting gently down. As Lapis had taken form, Garnet and Rose had summoned their weapons.

Lapis turned to them, and scowled furiously. " _You!_ " She snarled.

With a beckon from Lapis, the sink behind Penny exploded from the wall, and the resulting water rose up and formed a barrier, blocking the other Gems on their side of the house. Garnet lunged forwards and punched, but the water merely rippled, as though a pebble had been cast into its surface.

"For thousands of years I was trapped in that Pearl's gem..." Lapis said, in a terrifying whisper. "And you would have been perfectly happy for this one to never even know I existed!" She pointed at Penny. "I COULD HAVE SEEN ETERNITY GO BY IN THERE, FOR ALL YOU CARED!"

Rose ran over to the wall, and rested her hand on it, pleadingly. "We never knew there was a conscious Gem in there!" She said. "Please believe me. We would never have allowed that, if we knew!"

Lapis frowned, she grabbed Penny's wrist and stormed from the beach house, pulling her along, despite Garnet and Rose's protests.

"Lapis! Wait!" Penny said, resisting. "Where are we going?"

"Even if they're telling the truth, we can't trust them." Lapis said, authoritatively. "They're Crystal Gems!"

"So what?" Penny replied, desperately. "I'm a Crystal Gem! The Crystal Gems are the good guys!"

The two of them reached the ocean, where Lapis stood in the shallow waves, and looked at Penny as though she had just claimed to have three heads. "No, they're not! They're traitors and criminals!"

While the two stared at each other for a moment, unsure of how to continue the conversation, Amethyst came walking back down the beach, holding the plate that had once held Penny's pancakes.

"Hey Penny! What are you...?" She trailed off as she noticed Lapis. "Oh man... Oh no!"

The sound of cascading water from the house, preceded the arrival of Garnet and Rose at the door.

"Penny, please get away from her!" Rose called.

The Crystal Gems raced towards the pair of them. Before Penny could react, Lapis took her hand once more, and, with a flourish of her other arm, an enormous wave consumed the two of them. The sphere of water rocketed skywards, and Penny gasped, seeing bubbles fly from her mouth, as Beach City and the surrounding countryside plummeted from beneath them.

After just a few seconds, their ascent slowed, and Lapis and Penny stood atop a small platform, at the tip of a colossal, but narrow tower of water. At the bottom, the Crystal Gems were engaging several watery tendrils which whipped them away and grabbed their ankles, whenever they attempted to scale the tower. Penny got dizzy as she looked at the sprawling countryside laid out beneath her, and the fluffy clouds between it and her.

"Penny, thanks to you, I can finally go home..." Lapis said, gratefully. She fell to her knees, and pulled Penny into a hug. "You can come with me... you're not like the others!"

Penny frowned at Lapis, sadly. "Lapis, I don't know what you have against the Crystal Gems, but they're my family! My home is with them!"

"You... don't want to go back to Homeworld?" Lapis asked, sounding surprised and disappointed.

Penny shook her head, not caring to add that she had never been.

"Oh... Okay..." Lapis sighed. "Well... bye then..."

A pair of water wings formed on Lapis' back, and with one mighty flap, she shot skywards. Penny watched her ascend for a few seconds, before feeling her stomach leap towards her mouth as water she was standing on was reclaimed by gravity, bereft of Lapis' control. Penny screamed and windmilled her arms as she plummeted back towards the beach. She fell for almost thirty seconds, before she made a soft landing into Rose's waiting arms, as the pink Gem flew up towards her.

"Penny are you okay? Did she hurt you?" Rose asked, in a panic.

"No, no... She just... left..." Penny replied, sadly.

The two of them looked up, at the dazzlingly blue sky, in which the similarly-coloured Gem had been lost.

"Bye Lapis..."

* * *

 **Okay, important announcement for Penny fans, I have good news and bad news- Bad news is that I'm putting a pin in this story and probably won't come back to it. The good news is that I loved writing Penny so much, that I just rolled with it, and came up with characters for Amethyst and Garnet's hybrid children too! I've already started a new story, featuring all three of them, and I'm gonna upload it literally right after this. It's called "The Crystal Hybrids." Hope you enjoy it!**


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